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Blingplomacy

All presidential visits are shows. Host governments do their best to demonstrate to their visitor the best they have to offer, which may or may not correspond to what the president appreciates. The Italians thought the perfect show for Bush 41 would be a performance of Rigoletto, but he declined. That left lots of seats for Embassy Rome, which occupied them happily.

The Saudis have read President Trump far better than the Italians read 41. His face was plastered on the facade of his hotel, King Salman gave him a gold medal right off, and he even appears to have half-enjoyed the all male dancing:

The Kingdom’s unelected rulers are delighted to welcome a president who won’t bug them about democracy or human rights, governs with a tight coterie of family members, and will sell mountains of arms without asking a lot of questions about how they will be used in Yemen. It’s not the America I know and love, but it is definitely one an absolute monarchy can understand and appreciate.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Trump’s administration is enmired in House, Senate and FBI investigations of what is proving to be an extensive network of connections to Russia. He himself confirmed to Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov that he fired FBI Director Comey in order to relieve pressure from those investigations. That is as close to the dictionary definition of obstruction of justice as anyone would want to get.

Now it is believed his son-in-law Jared Kushner is a person of interest in the FBI investigation. I really am old enough to remember when Libya loaned money to Billy Carter, President Carter’s brother. The President then said:

I am deeply concerned that Billy has received funds from Libya and that he may be under obligation to Libya. These facts will govern my relationship with Billy as long as I am president. Billy has had no influence on U.S. policy or actions concerning Libya in the past, and he will have no influence in the future.

That’s a standard we might expect all future presidents to meet when it comes to the activities of their family members. But there is no sign whatsoever that Trump will even go a millimeter in that direction. Kushner’s sister has been cashing in on her White House connection in selling real estate to Chinese who get green cards in return. Will Jared Kushner himself turn up as heavily engaged with Russian real estate purchasers and financiers? How many of those will have used investments in the US to launder ill-gotten gains? And how much will Trump’s own company gain from his friendliness to the Kingdom?

Of course he wasn’t always so buddy-buddy with the Saudis, whom he criticized mercilessly during his campaign because they don’t pay for American military protection and, he claimed, they push gays off buildings. All that is forgotten now that he is in office. He settled instead for a smaller than Obama arms deal, with no burdensharing or human rights concessions. Blingplomacy is just that: shiny and worth less than it appears.